Floor plan design: Single-family house with 4 bedrooms and an office, 160 sqm

I cannot give an example, I cannot plan.

Simply copy from the internet? I do not believe that stairs require less space in other countries.

Oh yes, but they are really nasty. I worked in Utrecht and Amsterdam and I dreaded the stairs in the houses there. Two degrees steeper and one cm shorter and they would have been ladders.

and with crutches, laundry basket, baking tray it gets tight. My parents have been cursing the only 75 cm door for almost 40 years

Yes, with a laundry basket or baking tray I wouldn’t go into any storage room either. That’s why, for example, I would curse these kitchen passages through cabinets into the pantry.

Oh yes, but they really are a tight fit. I worked in Utrecht and Amsterdam and I dreaded the stairs in the houses there. Two degrees steeper and one centimeter shorter and they would have been ladders.

Yes, extremely space-saving construction is not proving effective nowadays. That’s why people try to give staircases in new buildings a bit more than the minimum. You don’t have to take the old houses in London, Amsterdam, or other cramped inner cities as role models now, when it can be done differently.

You can also learn a lot from the old houses when it comes to space management. Nowadays, you often see attempts to squeeze floor plans from the low-interest phase into significantly smaller floor plans without wanting to make compromises.

Here would be, for example, a floor plan that is very similar. Although I would swap the living room and kitchen. Then you would have a cozy corner for the couch and access to the terrace from the kitchen and dining room.

I can’t quite imagine right now what that’s supposed to look like.

150sqm with 4 bedrooms, guest / office, guest WC with shower and large utility room, 2 home office spaces – honestly, I’m surprised you don’t also have a pantry and sauna on your wish list. That 8sqm kitchen – will that be enough for you in the long run? The bedroom closet – can you even stand in front of it and open it?

So I took the basic idea and sorted it a bit. Even though I went with 8.70m depth, only a 50cm wardrobe fits. Utility room 7.7sqm will probably be too small for you, but I find the 3m kitchen even worse. I really ask myself: Is this still sensible or should one rather leave it?

First of all, thanks for the effort to draw a draft. Wouldn’t be bad either. I always thought it made sense to plan the bathroom upstairs above the utility room?

Regarding the positioning of WC and stairs, here’s a quick incomplete sketch. The stairs are in the same place so the upper floor doesn’t need to be redesigned.


As for the other objections. Sure, we try to fit as much as possible into as few sqm as possible. But only necessary rooms. A room for each child and an office is not, in my opinion, excessive. Construction costs are high, but does that mean one should completely give up on it? What’s the alternative? Nowadays, it’s hard to find an apartment of this size, and there’s hardly any difference in price.